Comment

As noted by Robson Valley, most of us have abandoned the old leather strops in favor of cardboard on a flat, hard surface. Why? Because thick leather will compress, allowing the strop to round the cutting edge, so that it actually becomes dull rather than sharp.

Comment

I must explain.
The box card stock is a very real reaction to the softening of the leather from the waxy carrier used to suspend many honing compounds.
Cheerios vs Chocolate Cheerios is an old joke here.
In fact, I have graduated (?) to thin flat filing cards as they wrap around mandrels better suited to honing crooked knives and carving adzes.
Even flat on a polished chunk of stone countertop cut-off, any card charged with honing compound is a pleasure to work on.

Historically, before paper, there was nothing flat but leather to sharpen iron tools for wood carving & wood working.
If the leather never softened, I would have never moved on.

Comment

I must explain.
The box card stock is a very real reaction to the softening of the leather from the waxy carrier used to suspend many honing compounds.
Cheerios vs Chocolate Cheerios is an old joke here.
In fact, I have graduated (?) to thin flat filing cards as they wrap around mandrels better suited to honing crooked knives and carving adzes.
Even flat on a polished chunk of stone countertop cut-off, any card charged with honing compound is a pleasure to work on.

Historically, before paper, there was nothing flat but leather to sharpen iron tools for wood carving & wood working.
If the leather never softened, I would have never moved on.

I don't like the buffing compounds on strops as you say, if they are soft enough to go on the leather, they usually have a lot of wax or oil. I prefer dryer compounds or SiC, but my favorite is some paste I got from England. Honestly, I'll buy a new piece of leather if it softens too much from the compound. One can either go with a hard leather to begin with or a really thin leather stretched tight. I use pizza box cardboard, cereal box cardboard note cards. It's all effective.

But I do really like that profile bar I made.

Comment

Decades ago, we used "Wenol," which was made in Europe, to put an essential glassy surface on some chromed steel.

I'd make shaped profiles, too but I need progressive ones for the crooked knives. As it is, I use a tennis ball as the mandrel for the big 7/75 Stubai carving adze.
Otherwise, pieces of Al pipe and various sized dowels and worn out chain saw files.

Rick Wiebe (Wood & Wildcraft) sells what he calls "White Lightning." It's aluminum oxide honing compound, suspended in a watery carrier which evaporates.
Glue a strip of denim cloth to a nice piece of birch plywood.
Butter that all over with the white AlOx, let it dry. Particle size has to be about 0.25 micron or so.
Soft strokes. Little pressure. Does a very good job and (so far) does not need to be recharged.

Comment

I have not tried denim Maybe if/when the leather goes bad on my profile bar. I used some very dry green compound. I essentially shave it off the compound stick and then spread it with a piece of leather on the leather and then used a paper towel with some orange solvent (goof off) to spread it around evenly. The strop to the right is screwed to my bench and has no compound at all.

Comment

I had the birch plywood from a consignment of wood and tools that I bought. So I cut that into strips.
Glued the denim down over size and trimmed it to look pretty.
Slopped on the AlOx according to Rick Wiebe's coaching and let it dry = good.

Try warming up the CrOx honing compound. Different brands use different amounts of wax (ripoffs).
High speed rubbing might make enough friction to soften it. Worked for me with one brand, the other (Lee Valley)was almost gooey.
I'll bet that softens/ruins a leather strop in no time. Used on card, it doesn't matter.

I've never used a profile for a gouge. Roll the bevels to do those on a flat surface then a folded bit of leather, 3 passes, and the inside is finished.

Comment

This fits only a few of my tools exactly but that wasn't the main goal. The profiles are nice in that more of the gouge touches the surface than flat and you don't need to roll as much and need fewer passes.

This is not the super fine green like Lee Valley sells, this is GOI from Russia, which I'm pretty sure is meaningless these days as I think there are a bunch of manufacturers I think this stuff is the no 3 http://en.shram.kiev.ua/work/paste-goi.shtml

I can literally come off of 400 grit sandpaper or 600 grit diamond and strop on this and carve. That is counter to my belief that you had to go to 1200+ before stropping. You don't if you have a coarser compound.

1 like

Comment

I keep testing in a try-stick of carving wood, 6-8 rolled passes is usually enough. But, whatever works.

Green CrOx. I hear you. It's global stuff. I had a big bar of no-name. Decided to saw off a slab for a new carver.
Learned that I ruined the teeth of the hand saw, cutting the CrOx. DUH!!!! Went into the soapstone carving kit.

Western Red Cedar, even the good stuff, is really soft. If I go from 800 to 1,000 to 1500 then hone, I get a useful edge.
On the crooked knives, I'll go maybe 600 then 800 then 1000 then 1500 then CrOx on card. Sandpapers wrapped on dowel or metal tubing.
I'll guess that the CrOx that I have is about 5,000 at the very most. Maybe 4,000.